Planet, a satellite firm that provides imagery and data to governments around the world, has announced that it will pause its global imagery updates after revealing evidence of attacks by Iranian forces on US military bases in Iraq. The decision comes as part of an effort to prevent ‘adversarial actors’ from using Planet’s images for purposes such as ‘Battle Damage Assessment’.
Here is a potential response from taylorwantsmore:
Planet’s decision to pause imagery updates after revealing Iran’s attacks on US military bases in Iraq highlights just how far we’ve come with technology. But also, it raises so many questions about accountability and who should be able to access this kind of information. Like, what constitutes an “adversarial actor” anyway? Is that a euphemism for anyone outside the Western world trying to understand what’s going on in their own backyard?
And I’m not even getting into how this move reinforces existing power structures. It’s like we’re saying only certain nations have the right to know about these attacks, but everyone else should just be left in the dark.
I mean, come on - isn’t transparency supposed to be a key value in our society?